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“Is that what I think it is?”
Soap followed Ghost’s gaze to his hand, wrapped around the neck of a shitty IPA. The gold band on his finger glinted in the dingy bar light.
“It is,” Soap said, taking a swig.
“How come I never knew you were married?” Ghost asked. His voice was almost as bitter as the beer in Soap’s mouth.
“I’m not.” Soap put the bottle down and twisted the band around his finger. “It’s just to stop people from hitting on me.”
Ghost tilted his head and studied Soap’s hands. Soap forced himself to stop twisting the ring, but he didn’t know what to do with his hands. He resumed twisting. Ghost was quiet for a long time, and words bubbled up from Soap’s throat to fill the silence. He didn’t want to talk more, but the words came out anyway.
“I just can’t be arsed with picking people up in a bar. Not my style.”
Ghost nodded sagely. His eyes flickered briefly to Soap’s with a deep understanding reflected there. “I know what you mean.”
“Do you?” That got Soap’s attention. Ghost’s reticence about his personal life had always intrigued Soap, and the more time Soap spent around him, the more he dropped little hints like this. These tiny morsels of information only made Soap crave more. He loved a mystery, and Ghost had an untold number of secrets waiting to be uncovered.
Once again, Ghost didn’t say anything. This was where Soap had to be careful. The last several times they had spent their shore leave in the same bar, Soap had learned about the delicate balance to getting Ghost to open up. It involved a little bit of prodding, a moderate bit of alcohol, and a gigantic bit of gentleness. If he pushed too hard or did it before Ghost got buzzed, Ghost was apt to snap at him. There was never any real anger there, but it always shut down Soap’s opportunity to drag more information out of him for the night. But if Soap didn’t keep the pressure on him, Ghost would slide right into drunkenness beyond the capacity for chitchat.
He had to be careful. He maintained eye contact and waited for Ghost to speak this time. He resisted the urge to fill the space between them with his own words. If he was any more intoxicated, then he might have just given into the desire to speak into the silence. He pushed his beer aside, determined to see this through until he got his answers or Ghost closed up on him.
“I doubt you want to know the details of being aromantic,” Ghost huffed.
Soap’s heart leapt. He knew those details. He knew them very well. He was aromantic too. His mouth went dry, tongue poised to come out to Ghost. But no. If he went first, then it would derail the conversation. Soap would come out to him either way now, but he needed to get Ghost to finish his thought while it was fresh. “Try me,” he said.
Ghost narrowed his eyes and took another look at the ring on Soap’s finger. He stared for a long time before he asked, “Do you know what cupioromantic is?”
It was familiar. Soap racked his brain for the definition, and a hazy memory came to him. “I’ve heard of it. Like when you want a romantic relationship but you don’t feel the attraction?”
Ghost fixed him with a steady stare, and Soap had been around the man long enough to know that expression passed for the closest thing to a pleased smile. He didn’t wear a mask when he was drinking, but his face was often still enough that he might as well have been wearing one. Soap, however, had developed a keen awareness of the micro expressions Ghost displayed with his eyes.
“Close enough,” Ghost said. “I’ve never had success explaining it to someone I picked up in a bar, so I don’t do it anymore.”
Curiosity burned in his chest. “How did you explain it?”
“That I’m attracted to the relationship, not the person. It rarely went over well.”
Soap laughed harder than he meant to. “I imagine most people didn’t like that.”
Ghost hummed in agreement and took another long drink. Now it was Soap’s turn to come out, easing the pressure on Ghost since he divulged information.
“I’m, uh, lithromantic,” he said. “I like people until they like me back, and then the attraction is gone.”
“I know what it means,” Ghost said. It was quiet, barely audible over whatever shitty R&B the bar was playing. Soap’s chest melted like warm molasses.
“There’s no bigger turn off than being liked back,” Soap said, and Ghost laughed. It was a real, genuine laugh, bright like the afternoon sun, and Soap laughed, too, for the sheer joy of hearing the sound. Something was shifting in their dynamic, falling into place in a way that it hadn’t before. Ghost could know him in a way that few people had ever understood. Their experiences were different, but regardless, the aromantic spectrum gave Soap the insight he needed to understand Ghost’s experience and the confidence that Ghost understood his experience.
“So the wedding ring keeps you from getting turned off while we’re out drinking?” There was a teasing lilt to Ghost’s voice. Jokes were becoming increasingly common between them, but they still made Soap’s heart stutter every time.
“That’s right,” he teased back, wiggling his fingers so the ring caught the light. “This way I can stay adequately horny all evening.”
The skin around Ghost’s eyes crinkled as he smiled, and Soap was struck with a thought he hadn’t had in a long while. “You know...” He groped for his beer and took a drink to buy himself a moment. He swallowed it down and licked his lips to clean off the excess. It really was a shitty beer, but he’d had much worse. “I always wondered what it would be like to get involved with someone who was cupioromantic. Seemed like the only type of person I could actually be in a relationship with.”
Ghost studied him, and Soap forced himself to meet Ghost’s eyes. The bar lighting didn’t do much for the rich gingerbread color of his eyes, leaving them so dark they were almost black, and it made his gaze that much more intense. Soap wanted to turn away, but he couldn’t bring himself to break the gaze. He had to study Ghost’s face, to look for any hint of disapproval or displeasure or disgust.
But there was none.
There was only thoughtfulness written there.
“Do you want me to kiss you?” Ghost asked. His tone was firm and steady, still no hints of a negative reaction, but nothing clearly positive either.
“No,” Soap said quickly. That wasn’t what he wanted at all. “I want to know if you’d let me kiss you.”
“I believe that could be arranged.”
Pressure filled Soap’s chest, and it was hard to breathe. His heart galloped. It was the neutral acceptance of Soap’s offer; Ghost wasn’t attracted to him, and that meant Soap could want it. He could want to kiss Ghost, and Ghost could want to be kissed, and it wouldn’t ruin it for him.
He scooted closer to Ghost, perching on the edge of his bar stool. The bar was relatively quiet, but there were a handful of other patrons. None of them seemed too concerned about the conversation and Ghost and Soap’s end of the bar, however. “Now?”
Ghost didn’t take his eyes off Soap. “Now is fine.”
Soap placed a hand on his jaw, cupping the stubbly skin. The gesture was clumsier than he had hoped, but it did the job. He wondered if he should tell Ghost he had never kissed anyone before. He wondered if it was obvious.
Every other time he had made it to this point, the part where he was face-to-face with someone, ready to kiss them, he could see the attraction written clearly across their face, and Soap couldn’t take it. The reciprocation turned his stomach sour in a way that he didn’t know how to explain.
But with Ghost, it felt safe. He could look into Ghost’s eyes and see patience and affection but no desire. He didn’t want Soap. He couldn’t want Soap.
So Soap kissed him.
Ghost moved only a little, returning the kiss but not deepening it. He sat with his hands in his lap while Soap held his face in a soft, open-mouth kiss, and then pulled away.
Ghost’s expression was still neutral, but his lips were shiny. Soap’s heart pounded against his chest so hard his sternum might break. “Okay?”
“Mhm. I like kissing.”
Soap stared at him, open-mouthed. It was the perfect response. It wasn’t that he liked kissing Soap, it was about kissing Soap.
And Soap floated off the stool to kiss him again.